So he told them he needed to take a few days off after the drama and energy expenditure of the past few weeks. They accepted that readily enough. They could all use a weekend for some R & R.

Then Josiah Mason booked a flight to the Bahamas for the long holiday weekend. Close to the same flight times and under another name, he booked a weekend trip to NOLA.

As he laid his plans with damnable intention, the workweek smoldered to an end. Anson continued conducting intensive research on anyone that looked likely to be involved with their quarry. Richard joined them in Atlanta to see if he could catch anyone tailing Josiah. So far, he’d come up with nothing.

The police discovered Rodriguez had filed Molly’s divorce before she died. After returning to Sherman & Associates with the appropriate warrant, they confiscated everything from Austin’s office.

The Friday morning after Molly left, Frank Williams, the lead detective, briefed Josiah on the latest on the investigation. In the confiscated files, they found papers on how to set fires using the same techniques that had been used on Rodriguez’s house and office. Meanwhile, Molly’s face and name were in the news almost nightly, but the exposure drew no credible leads on her current whereabouts.

“It appears more and more likely that Sullivan might have done something to his wife,” Frank told him in a face-to-face. “Unless or until we uncover any new evidence that says otherwise, the whole crime looks like a revenge killing gone wrong.”

Josiah tapped his lower lip as he listened. Someone had gift wrapped what had happened and put a bow on it. “Papers on how to commit arson in his office? Pretty damn obvious, don’t you think?”

“I’m just reporting on what we found. Not offering a commentary.” The detective gave him a cynical smile.

It did not suit Josiah to have this go quietly into a cold-case file. “That theory doesn’t explain what happened to Sullivan’s BMW. Why would he sign the divorce papers only to kill Rodriguez and bomb her office later?”

“He let his wife take him to the cleaners.” Frank shrugged. “So he might have changed his mind?”

“You’re right, there’s motive,” Josiah murmured, watching him closely. “The settlement was for a lot of money.”

The other man scratched his chin. “But yeah, you’ve got me on the car. We don’t have a reason for it, and according to the timeline, his car blew first. Could he really have been such a fuckup that he accidentally blew up his own car, then got himself killed later that night? I also don’t like that we haven’t found the wife, so we’ve got to keep digging.”

“Do you see her as a suspect?”